188 



ALE-CONNER. 



ALEHOUSES. 



190 



brewing of ' Pale Ale," by Messrs. Allsop ; and the establishment 

 belonging to the same firm, near the Minories, illustrates the admirable 

 way in which railways are now rendered available for the warehousing 

 of manufactured produce. 



Ag the mode of producing ale differs little from that adopted for 

 beer, it will suffice to refer to BREWING. 



ALE-CONNER. An ale-conner ia an ale-kenner, one who kens or 

 knows what good ale is. The office of ale-taster or ale-conner is one of 

 great antiquity. Those who held it were called ' gustatores cervisite." 

 Ale-uuiiners or ale-tasters were regularly chosen every year in the court- 

 leet of each manor, and were sworn to examine and assay the beer and 

 ale, and to take care that they were good and wholesome, and sold at 

 proper prices according to the assize ; and also to present all default of 

 brewers to the next court-leet. Similar officers were also appointed in 

 boroughs and towns corporate ; and in many places, in compliance with 

 charters or ancient custom, ale-tasters are, at the present day, annually 

 chosen and sworn, though the duties of the office are fallen into 

 disuse. In the manor of Tottenham, and in many others, it was the 

 duty of the ale-conner to prevent unwholesome or adulterated pro- 

 visions being offered for sale, and to see that false balances were not 

 used. In 4 Jac. I. c. 5, which was intended for the prevention of 

 drunkenness, the officers more especially charged with presenting 

 offences against the Act were constables; churchwardens, head-boroughs, 

 tithing-men, ale-conners, and sidesmen. In most places an inspector of 

 weights and measures now performs the duties formerly exercised by 

 the ale-conner. 



The duty of the ale-conners appointed by the corporation of the city 

 of London, is to ascertain that the beer sold in the city is wholesome, 

 and that the measures in which it is given are fair. For this purpose 

 they may enter into the houses of all victuallers and sellers of beer 

 within the city. The investigation is made four times in the year ; 

 and on each occasion it occupies about fourteen days. The days are 

 not publicly known beforehand. Southwark is not visited. The investi- 

 gation into the wholesomeness of the article has fallen into disuse. 

 Fairness in the measures is insured by requiring all pots to be stamped 

 with the city arms, and the ale-conners report to the aldermen such 

 houses an do not comply with the rule, and such as have pots with 

 forged stamps. In the municipal boroughs of England and Wales, to 

 which the inquiries of the Commissioners of Corporation Inquiry 

 extended in 1837 (234 in number), there were in 25 boroughs officers 

 called ' ale-tasters ; ' in 6 they were termed ' ale-founders ; ' and in 4, 

 ' ale-couners.' 



The ancient regulations which the ale-conners were appointed to 

 carry into effect appear to have been dictated by a regard to public 

 health ; but in modern times, when ale and beer had become exciseable 

 commodities, the restrictions and provisions introduced from time to 

 time had for their object principally the security of the revenue and 

 the convenient collection of duties. 



ALEHOUSES. The adoption of efficient measures, for the regu- 

 lation of houses appropriated to the sale of intoxicating liquors among 

 the lower orders of the people, has been found to be absolutely 

 necessary to the well-being of society. Upon practical subjects the 

 exjierience of the past is always the best guide to an opinion for the 

 future ; and it may, therefore, be useful to trace, in a summary manner, 

 the history of the laws in this country passed for the regulation of ale- 

 houses. By the common law it is as lawful to open a house for the 

 sale of beer and ale as to keep a shop for the purpose of selling any 

 other commodity ; subject only to a criminal prosecution for a nuisance 

 if his house be kept in a disorderly manner, by permitting excessive 

 drinking, or encouraging bad company to resort thither, to the dis- 

 turbance of the neighbourhood. As civilisation and population increased, 

 this restriction was found insufficient; and so early as the 11 Henry 

 VII. (1496) an Act was passed against ' vacabounds and beggers,' which 

 empowered two justices of the peace "to reject and pxit awey comen 

 ale-selling in tounes and places where they shall convenyent [convene], 

 and to take suretie of the keepers of alehouses of their gode behavying, 

 by the (Uscrecion of the seid justices, and in the same to be avyed and 

 aggreed at the tyme of their sessions." This seems to have been 

 disregarded in practice : and by 5 & Edward VI. c. 25, reciting that 

 intolerable troubles to the commonwealth daily increased through such 

 abuses and disorders as were had and used in common alehouses, power 

 wan given to magistrates to forbid the selling of beer and ale at such 

 alehouses : and it was enacted that " none should be suffered to keep 

 alehouses unless publicly allowed at the sessions, or by two justices ; 

 iind the justices were directed to take security from all keepers of 

 alehouses, against the using of unlawful games, and for the maintenance 

 of good order therein." Authority is then given to the quarter sessions 

 to inquire whether any acts have been done by alehouse keepers which 

 may subject them to a forfeiture of their recognisances. It is also 

 provided that " if any person not allowed by the justices, should keep a 

 common alehouse, he might be committed to gaol for three days, and, 

 before his deliverance, must enter into a recognisance not to repeat his 

 offence ; & certificate of the recognisance and the offence is to be given 

 to the next sessions, when the offender is to be fined 20." This statute 

 formed the commencement of the licensing system, and wan the first 

 act of the legislature which placed alehouses under the control of the 

 local magistrates. 



In 1804 a statute was passed (2 Jac. I. c. 9) expressly, as it* 



preamble states, for the purpose of restraining the " inordinate 

 haunting and tippling in inns, alehouses, and other victualling 

 houses." From this statute it is clear that in the time of James I., 

 it was common for country labourers both to eat their meals and to 

 lodge in alehouses. 



The operation of the last-mentioned statute was limited to the end 

 of the next session of parliament, in the course of which a statute 

 (4 Jac. I. c. 4) was passed, imposing a penalty upon persons selling 

 beer or ale to unlicensed alehouse-keepers ; and by another statute 

 (4 Jac. I. c. 5) of the same parliament, it was enacted that " every 

 person convicted, upon the view of a magistrate, of remaining drinking 

 or tippling in an alehouse, should pay a penalty of 3s. M. for each 

 offence, and in default of payment be placed in the stocks for four 

 hours." The latter statute further directs that " all offences relating 

 to alehouses shall be diligently presented and inquired of before 

 justices of assize, and justices of the peace, and corporate magistrates ; 

 and that all constables, ale-conners [ALE-COHNER], and other officers, 

 in their official oaths shall be charged to present such offences within 

 their respective jurisdictions." 



The next legislative notice of alehouses is in the 7 Jac. I. c. 10, 

 which, after reciting that " notwithstanding former laws, the vice of 

 excessive drinking and drunkenness did more and more abound," 

 enacts as an additional punishment upon alehouse-keepers offending 

 against former statutes, that, " for the space of three years, they should 

 be utterly disabled from keeping an alehouse." 



The 21 Jac. I. c. 7, declares that the above-mentioned statutes, 

 having been found by experience to be good and necessary laws, shall, 

 with some additions to the penalties, and other trifling alterations, be 

 put in due execution, and continue for ever. 



A short I statute was passed soon after the accession of Charles I. 

 (1 Car. I. c. 4), which supplied an accidental omission in the statutes of 

 James; and a second (3 Car. I. c. 3) facilitates the recovery of the 

 20*. penalty imposed by the statute of Edward VI., and provides an 

 additional punishment, by imprisonment, for a second and third 

 offence. At this point all legislative interference for the regulation 

 and restriction of alehouses was suspended for more than a century. 



The circumstances which led to the passing of the above-mentioned 

 statutes in the early part of the reign of James I., and the precise 

 nature of the evils alluded to in such strong language in the preambles, 

 are not described by any contemporaneous writers. It appears, how- 

 ever, from the Journals, that these statutes gave rise to much discus- 

 sion in both houses of parliament, and were not passed without 

 considerable opposition. These laws never appear to have produced 

 the full advantage which was expected. During the reign of Charles 1. 

 the complaints against alehouses were loud and frequent. In the year 

 1635 we find the Lord Keeper Coventry, in his charge to the judges in 

 the Star Chamber previously to the circuits, inveighing in strong terms 

 against them. (Howell's ' State Trials,' vol. iii. p. 83S) He says, " I 

 account alehouses and tippling-houses the greatest pests in the kingdom. 

 I give it you in charge to take a course that none be permitted mile. : 

 they be licensed ; and, for the licensed alehouses, let them be but a 

 few, and in fit places ; if they be in private comers and ill places, they 

 become the dens of thieves they are the public stages of drunkenness 

 and disorder ; in market-towns, or in great places or roads, where 

 travellers come, they are necessary." He goes on to recommend it to 

 the judges to " let care be taken in the choice of alehouse-keepers, that 

 it be not appointed to be the livelihood of a great family ; one or two 

 is enough to draw drink and serve the people in an alehouse ; but if 

 six, eight, ten, or twelve must be maintained by alehouse-keeping, it 

 cannot choose but be an exceeding disorder, and the family, by this 

 means, is unfit for any other good work or employment. In many 

 places they swarm by default of the justices of the peace, that set up 

 too many ; but if the justices will not obey your charge herein, certify 

 their default and names, and I assure you they shall be discharged. I 

 once did discharge two justices for setting up one alehouse, and shall 

 be glad to do the like again upon the same occasion." 



During the Commonwealth, the complaints against alehouses still 

 continued, and were of precisely the same nature as those which are 

 recited in the statutes of James I. At the London sessions, in 

 August, 1654, the court made an order for the regulation of licences, 

 in which it i stated that the " number of alehouses in the city were 

 great and xmnecessary, whereby lewd and idle people were harboured, 

 felonies were plotted and contrived, and disorders and disturbances 

 of the public peace promoted. Among several rules directed by the 

 court on this occasion for the removal of the evil, it was ordered that 

 " no new licences shall be granted for two years." 



During the reign of Charles II. the subject of alehouses was not 

 brought in any shape under the consideration of the legislature ; and 

 no notice is taken by writers of that period of any peculiar incon- 

 veniences sustained from them, though in 1682 it was ordered by the 

 court, at the London sessions, that no licence should in future be 

 granted to alehouse-keepers who frequented conventicles. Locke, in 

 his ' Second Letter on Toleration,' published in 1690, alludes to their 

 having been driven to take the sacrament for the sake of their places, 

 or ' to obtain licences to sell ale.' 



The next Act of Parliament on the subject passed in the year 1729, 

 when the statute 2 Geo. II. c. 28, 11, after reciting tlxat " incon- 

 veniences had arisen in consequence of licences being granted to ale- 



